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mchenrycards
Featured Contributor, Vintage Corner, Senior Membe
Sometime in the early '90's I had a friend who I gave tons of cards to and never took a dime from him as I knew he was low on cash. I was just happy to get rid of the cards as they were taking up room in my garage. One day he came to a card show and surprised me with a sweet Ted Williams autograph that he obtained from the Sports Collectors Store in LaGrange, Illinois which was once a hot bed of Chicago area collecting. The guys who ran the store were in many ways hobby pioneers and were well respected throughout the hobby.
Knowing the autograph was good as I knew where he bought it from (and the fact there were no authenticating services back then) I never gave the authenticity of the autograph a second thought. Fast forward a few years and in the main hobby publication called Sports Collectors Digest Ted Williams' kid came out and said that 80 to 90 percent of all of his father's autographs in the hobby are fake. He further said that if any collector wanted to send a photo of their autograph to him he would be more than happy to render his opinion. I made a photocopy of the picture and sent it off to Ted's kid and waited.....and waited and waited some more. I literally gave up on getting a response but nearly two years later the letter below arrived in the mail. I am going to someday get both items framed together as I think they would make a pretty cool collectable.
Knowing the autograph was good as I knew where he bought it from (and the fact there were no authenticating services back then) I never gave the authenticity of the autograph a second thought. Fast forward a few years and in the main hobby publication called Sports Collectors Digest Ted Williams' kid came out and said that 80 to 90 percent of all of his father's autographs in the hobby are fake. He further said that if any collector wanted to send a photo of their autograph to him he would be more than happy to render his opinion. I made a photocopy of the picture and sent it off to Ted's kid and waited.....and waited and waited some more. I literally gave up on getting a response but nearly two years later the letter below arrived in the mail. I am going to someday get both items framed together as I think they would make a pretty cool collectable.
